VVM on T-Mobile 8900 fixed - various OS

After reading dozens of posts, and trying this many times, and being stuck without working VVM on my 8900 for the last several weeks, I finally figured out what was messing it up -- and how to get it working.

There are enough frustrated people who've been trying to do this that I think it's worth starting a new thread to make sure they see it. I've posted this on other sites as well -- sorry if it's redundant, but I'm hoping it will help a number of frustrated folks. A copy of the post is below:

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Like many of you, I've been grabbing each new leaked OS version that comes along for my 8900, and anxiously trying them out to see what new features are becoming available.

Also like a number of you, I've been frustrated that I haven't been able to get Visual Voicemail working, despite using the same OS version that many report as working with VVM. I've tried almost every version of the 5.x leaks since they came out, and have never -- until tonight -- been successful getting VVM to work. I had read all the posts and advice. I had done several 10+ minute battery pulls, re-registered with T-Mobile's network several times, sent service books, etc.

I also followed up as soon as the "switch your device on my.t-mobile.com to a 9700" trick was posted, and this *did* allow me to add the service to my T-Mobile account -- but I STILL had the annoying error message on the 8900 to the effect that I should wait while the phone attempted to request provisioning from my mobile carrier.

Until tonight, nothing I tried worked.

I finally came to the conclusion that:
1) VVM was somehow broken or unusable on one of the early 5.x OS's I loaded
2) whatever was broken in that installation was carried forward, somehow, into the later versions of the OS that I installed

Thus, even though other people had VVM working on 5.0.0.348, it wouldn't for me while I was running the exact same version.

With that in mind, I did the following:

- Used Device Manager to back up my Blackberry databases
- Used Device Manager to back up my 3rd party apps

For those of you unfamiliar with the second item -- backing up 3rd party apps with Device Manager, there are a few excellent posts on the subject on the various forums, and no doubt a good thread on it here as well. Essentially, you select the Device Switch Wizard while in Device Manager, specify your source device (your current Blackberry), but do NOT specify your target device. Then when you run the wizard, it backs up all your 3rd party apps to a temp folder. At that point, instead of specifying a new target device, you locate the backup folder and copy it somewhere else, where Device Manager won't delete it, and then cancel the wizard. After you install your new, clean OS, you navigate to the stored backup, point device manager to the ALX created by the wizard, which in turn references the COD's it has archived from all your apps. Enough on that subject -- it works, and is discussed in detail elsewhere. (google is a great way to find this info). Back on topic:

With my backups complete, I used BBSAK to wipe my 8900.

Then I loaded a clean copy of 5.0.0.348, with NO applications installed, and without any BB databases being restored. It was a plain vanilla OS install. I could NOT get VVM to work with just 348 installed in its totally plain state.

I wiped the 8900 again, and this time I loaded up a plain copy of 5.0.0.314, booted up and found that VVM suddenly worked! Wonderful...but there was another lesson still to learn:

My next step was to restore the Blackberry databases I had backed up. I watched as it did this, and saw a message fly by stating that Visual Voicemail options were being reloaded (along with all the other app databases).

This time, as soon as I tried to start VVM, I got an exception popup (once only) that said something about an invalid configuration. It closed, and I was stuck with the old familiar "waiting for provisioning" error dialog again.

It was clear that something in the old VVM database was killing VVM, and it seemed that once it's loaded and preventing VVM from working, you'll have the same problem going forward, or backward, to any new OS if you choose the option of restoring all your old BB databases after loading your new OS, or if you simply allow DM to do this on its own, as it does by default.

I was about to wipe the device again and start over, but came up with an idea: use the DM's ability for selective restore of BB databases from a backup, and only restore the backed up VVM databases (there are 3 as I recall) from the backup of the clean 5.0.0.314 install I did earlier (after my first wipe). This would clearly test if it was something in the database that would either prevent -- or allow -- proper function of VVM.

I restored the 3 VVM databases, and didn't even have to restart the device -- VVM started working again perfectly. I followed up by installing 5.0.0.348 again, and then restoring all my 3rd party apps, and VVM still works perfectly.

SO: if you're not having luck with VVM on .238, .310, .314, .348 -- try this:
- do a complete 3rd party app backup
- do a complete BB database backup
- wipe your device
- load your OS of choice -- I think that .238 on all have working VVM
- verify that VVM now works
- do a SELECTIVE restore of your BB databases, NOT including the VVM databases
- restore your 3rd party apps

A bit of work, but not as bad as it sounds -- and in my book, the results are worth it!